From a historical perspective......

[Musicforsnorks]

How did people keep the rain off when clothing like in these photos was fairly standard? Or at least in rural parts.

Less people had vehicles (WW2 era? I am no fashion expert)
The elements will have been just as un-predictable, rainy and merciless as today, i presume.
Less central heating, access to modern gadgetry, and so on.

Theres lots of wool and heavy fabrics, im picturing margaret rutherford as miss marple here ❤️.......kinda like Toast and Margaret Howell style.

Its all very lovely but.....practical?
Do you think this resurgence in old-english country style is just a gimmick as opposed to an effort to bring back sustainable/quality pieces?
The images are by Holland & Holland from around 2016-ish.

I’ve knitted fair isle style colour work before - the really patterned stuff - and it’s properly done on needles that are 2-3 mm wide. It takes ages and is very skilful. They are done on double pointed needles and I’ve seen images of women knitting while out and about . (Found one. - she’s collecting peat). Fair Isle jumpers were popular golfing garments for a while. www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/vvxL0JpLSn6UT5vYfutMDw

thanks for the links on the ganseys/fishermans sweaters - have found this whole thread fascinating, but am quite tempted to have a go at a 'proper' fishermans sweater. Maybe not now while kids are preschoolers but definitely in the future!

Thanks for the link to the Flamborough, @autumnpie. I'd no idea that they were knitted in one piece on a fine circular needle. The Tricoteur Guernsey are machine-knits and done in pieces.

I would once have asked my mum to try her hand but she's too old to manage the weight of a one piece garment.

Blacker Yarns in Cornwall sell fine 5-ply for ganseys/Guernseys, but the cost of proper woollen yarn is high. The last time I bought some, it cost about £80 for a cabled gilet.

As a farmer, shepherd and reenactor ive tested wet weather clothing to destruction. Proper wool keeps weather out better than synthetic fabrics, wool socks are warm yet breathable and i use a waxed jacket in preference to a nylon one, always!

Thamk you to. Everyone who has contributed to this thread - when I started it i had no idea the comments would be so bloody interesting and i am really, really enjoying learning about all of this stuff.

I also wondered whether gabardine may have led to the word ‘garb’ but possibly not!

When I was little, early 70s or very late 60s,I had an arran sweater that was incredibly warm. I needed it in my gran's has as she had no central heating and her house was freezing. Unfortunately it stank, a bit fishy.

That stink would have been the lanolin, I think, goose. My mum has knit aran jumpers over the years, but they were the chunky, large needles style. Given the amount of time and work that goes into them, I can't imagine knitting a Guernsey on fine needles!

Fascinating thread, thanks everyone.

As a re-enactor I wear a lot of wool - skirts, bodices and cloaks and even in the worse weather my cloak has kept me dry. Also I have a pair of traditional clogs and have never had wet feet in them. I think because everything is Goretex or similar these days we have forgotten just what a good product wool is.

I knitted a gansey in the real 5ply wool whilst I was in sixth-form, it was amazingly warm. They are traditionally knitted in the round and would have used long double point needles before circular needles were a thing.

It reminds me of an old walking book - maybe even D of E, that said the best legwear for walking was a good pair of Harris Tweed trousers.

If you use long dpns and a knitting sheath you get more leverage which helps you knit tighter.

Not sure about lanolin being 'left in'. A knitting historian has told me this was a myth when it comes to ganseys as they were done with commercially spun wool which was properly scoured and then re-oiled for spinning.

Very interesting thread.

This thread is fascinating. But listening to all the talk about wool and tweed, the main thought for me is how unbearably itchy it must have been. Or is someone going to say that because people didn’t shower every day their skin wasn’t as sensitive? (Which I can believe, I just won’t be persuaded to emulate)

the main thought for me is how unbearably itchy it must have been.

I think that was why people wore linen next to the skin. And of course it would protect their outerwear too.

Your skin gets used to it. Or mine did anyway. You'd have been shoved in the stuff since birth, by the time you were conscious of it itd be 'what itch'?

Also, yy to the clogs keeping your feet dry!

Agree with Nettie, I don't think you would have worn it next to your skin much, more as an outer or intermediate layer.

What about the weight of heavy woolen garments? Isn't weightlessness the main advantage of new materials?

(Fantastic thread, this; learnt so much. Big thanks to all.)

Wool is heavy but you don't really notice when you're wearing it. If you're laundering it it weighs a ton wet, of course, but it didn't get washed much if at all.
Wool swimming costumes are awful, though, talking to people who have tried them out - not just heavy but also stretchy and saggy, which is not what you want!

Travelling to reenactments on the train with your medieval kit in a rucksack, wool is a blooming nightmare of course, but you forgive it later in the evening round the campfire when it keeps you warm and won't melt holes if it gets sparks on it, unlike a down jacket.

Actually fire resistance is another issue - women's kitchen deaths went up hugely when cotton replaced wool as standard working class female wear.
Prior to that women sometimes died in apron fires when their linen aprons caught, but a lot of people avoided that by wearing wool aprons for cooking.

I really enjoyed reading a book called ‘The Lady’s Maid: My Life in Service by Rosina Harrison who was Nancy Astor’s maid for decades.

First half is better than the second but great detail about being born in a cottage, her mother a fine launderer, (fine as in did the big house’s delicates and lace etc) and choosing which area of service to go into and then dressing ladies. Different world.

@RoseyPeas I was just coming on to say this. The history was really interesting.

That’s interesting about fire deaths.

I actually quite like the weight of wool. I much prefer that in a winter coat, I find the weightlessness of down weird and insubstantial.

I was just coming on to say that I find the weight of a good wool coat reassuringly heavy.

I've knitted DD an Icelandic style Lopi jumper before - the Lopi wool was itchy - the fibres of the wool were very long/coarse. The smell of the Lanolin seemed to drive the cat daft too! She was always trying to get the wool. It was a beautiful jumper but unfortunately the 2yo didn't appreciate my efforts.

Mallory and Irvine climbed Everest in natural fibres. There was a study of their clothing after some remains were found.

They wore mainly wool with silk undergarments and leather boots.

The study showed that their clothing was more effective and more light weight than that worn by Hilary in the 1950s and most gear available at the time of the study. In fact Mallory's boots are the most lightweight ever worn on Everest. The study dispelled the belief that their deaths were due to inadequate clothing and there followed a resurgence in the use of wool and silk clothing by mountaineers.

Check out icebreaker for modern woollen active wear.

Ooh, I didn't know that about the boots, how interesting!

Not sure about lanolin being 'left in'. A knitting historian has told me this was a myth when it comes to ganseys as they were done with commercially spun wool which was properly scoured and then re-oiled for spinning.

I don't know much about ganseys, but if they were usually dyed (navy?) then that makes sense because lanolin stops dyes setting in wool. Commercially spun wool wasn't widely available before the 19th century so it might depend on how long ganseys have been around.

Most people pre-19th century (and many rural people up to the early 20th century) spun their own wool rather than using commercial wool. That sheared raw wool would have been washed lightly to clean away dirt (mud, grass, leaves, poo, dead insects... lovely stuff that ends up on sheep) by soaking in water and picking with fingers, but that wouldn't have been enough to remove much lanolin. Sometimes it was left for days to soak. It was sometimes spun at this stage in the grease if the wool was destined for a product where waterproofing was important, like hats, coats/cloaks, and so on. Different breeds of sheep produce different amounts of lanolin in their wool, and different amounts of waxy substances in the lanolin, so there were huge regional differences depending on the local sheep.

Often, the wool was then scoured - immersed in rounds of warm/hot water, typically with soap and soda ash etc. - to lift away some of the lanolin and stop it feeling greasy to the touch, then carded and spun. Depending on the length of soak and concentration of cleaning agents, a wool worker could control how much lanolin was left. A very light scouring would clean the last dirt out of the wool but still leave it slightly slightly oily (again good for waterproofing), whereas a thorough scouring would remove pretty much all the lanolin and make the wool squeaky clean and receptive to dyes. Sometimes spinning was done in between rounds of scouring because soaking spun wool can help set the twist. The spun (and dyed) wool could then be re-lanolinised by soaking in one of the previous rounds of soaking water that was full of lanolin.

In short... So. Much. Work.

I found the book, it was Poucher's The Scottish Peaks. He recommends tweed breeches, good wool socks and a Shetland jumper (ie quite a lightweight one)

I love this thread.

I've no expertise, only a knitters and spinners point of view but modern superwash treated wool is miles apart from from what would have been used then.

The sheep breeds would be different too, in my experience merino absorbs water much more than a native breed like a Jacob. It's actually pretty hard to get Jacob properly wet when soaking it, you need to weigh it down and leave it for 20-30 mins, and it dries really quickly. It's light and airy and warm especially when it's woollen spun though you couldn't wear it next to the skin.